Tim Ho Wan and Din Tai Fund in Hong Kong both lost their stars. There was a stall in Singapore that also lost its. Kam's Roast Goose in HK also used to have one, but I don't recall if it still does.
This is cool! As someone who's into fine dining, a few thoughts/tips for people starting out:
1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.
2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.
These are really good points, and mirror my experience - though we are opposite - I'm definitely not into fine dining.
I didn't get point 1 til years later, after more reading. I'd tried uber fancy restaurants a few times, and each time left disappointed and really almost feeling cheated. Odd flavors (to me), small portions, a lot of art on the plate. I never really judged it based on anything but the value and taste, and if you do that, you'll likely be disappointed as I was.
I guess I realized I'm just a simple guy who likes common foods, but hey, we're all different.
Value is too subjective to be discussed, but if we settle for “normal” portions at less than 300 bucks a meal, restaurants pushing to the top tier on taste also end up in the Michelin. If you’re into traditional “at home”, no nonsense cuisine, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by the ones making it to the list.
Perhaps the deception is on thinking that any “excellent” restaurant will be pleasing to everyone who can afford it. If you don’t like oysters the best oyster spot in the world will be pretty meh, same way if you’re not into trendy stuff, the price tag won’t make it magically work for you.
> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.
Well said!
Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant. That's about as cool as the person who watches a popular TV show just so they can smugly complain about it. Just don't.
> Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant.
Don't burst your bubble, right? Jay Rayner would like a word :-)
The west's fetishisation of fine dining is so far away from the Japanese model that it allows for this idea that the most expensive thing can still be unsatisfying, laughable or misleading, because it's "in its own category".
It is a trope to say "people starve elsewhere in the world" but it is also a truism. If expensive food is not objectively better food, reject it, and seek better food that isn't expensive.
I took a theater criticism class in college and the main rule I remember is "Never say something is good or bad. Describe it." or something like that. The point being even if you're personally not into something, convey the strengths and weaknesses together so others can get a better sense of whether it's for them because people aren't all looking for the same thing from an experience.
To the "experience" point, one of my all time best meals was crab at a three star restaurant. I like crab but it's normally not special to me. This was crab and almost nothing else prepared in four different ways that made the taste and texture entirely different. I'd never have ordered a dish described like that at a lower rated restaurant. It's not a meal I'd want to order over and over. But it's a meal I still remember fondly more than 20 years later.
the best meal i ever had in my life was at Bar Crudo on Divis in SF. owners pivoted to a taco place, for reasons unfathomable to me. had a dinner that blew my conception of food open, went to a show nearby after.
got home at 3AM and made myself a bit of sausage and toast and to my surprise the experience of my prior meal persisted, and in contrast my late night snack seemed like it was made of cardboard.
For some reason I don't really understand, while I can't stand McDonalds in general, their fries are better than any of the "fast casual" places like Shake Shack, In-n-Out, etc. that I've encountered.
McD partially fries and freezes their fries before fully frying them. [1] That probably makes them more crispy and tastier to many (myself included). In-N-Out uses fresh potatoes, which means no fry-freeze-fry.
Five Guys has very crispy and tasty fries — especially the cajun style — that are not double fried. [2]
I admit I don't remember Five Guys fries as anything exceptional but maybe I haven't ever had them. Admittedly I find Five Guys pretty overrated and expensive generally so I eat them even more rarely than burger places generally.
The burgers are overpriced compared to In-N-Out, but the lines are much shorter as a result. Fries aren't cheap, but 90% of the time a 'small' fries at Five Guys is bigger than a large anywhere else.
I've been to quite a few fine dining establishments that had very generous portions. The best advice I can give is always ask the waiter in order to gauge how much you should be ordering. As long as the restaurant isn't run by total assholes, you'll get an honest answer. Waiters want to make you happy as their generous tips are largely powered by your enjoyment. Having a miss-portioned meal and paying a fortune doesn't encourage a reasonable tip.
I don't think I've ever seen a prix fixe/chef's selection menu that wasn't going to leave me absolutely stuffed. If you go somewhere and order a la carte and plan to spend "normal" nice restaurant prices (say, $30-40) sure you'll get a smaller size. But if you're spending like $70+, you'll almost always leave full. The one actually starred restaurant I went to, I skipped lunch and could still barely walk home it was so much food. 6-12 courses add up, even if they're small.
You really need to ask the waiter before hand. Often times at fancier restaurants you aren't expected to just order and entree and be full, and yet that's what some patrons expect.
An example is high end Italian places will often have a pasta section at say 20-40/item and entree's 30-100's, and you think you can just order a pasta and have a good meal. Except you're really intended to order a couple appetizers, a pasta meal each and an entree. It's not them trying to take all your money, but it's what the normal clientele expect. It's also often what the food quality/prices demand.
If it's a truly good restaurant (and not just an expensive one), you shouldn't be coming away hungry.
Really depends on the appetite, and the restaurant.
It's a bit like an art museum. You can go get a ticket to the Hermitage, and you would probably need 3 full days to see every single thing in it.
For the same price, there might be some museum that shows only a few paintings.
Does that mean the bigger museum the better the value? Kind of? If the goal is to get an experience, there are many ways to experience some emotions (and in the restaurant's case flavours) that won't lead to thorough "satiation", but would still be novel.
Some museums are like that, and you'll want to go see an Avengers movie afterwards to satisfy your entertainment.
Some restaurants are like that, and you'll hit MacDonalds on teh way back.
But more often than not, Michelin-echelon restaurants will overwhelm you with a ton of tiny courses, by the end of which you will be fairly adequately stuffed.
3-4 hours is probably about the limit of how much time I can handle a given museum. Much past that, I'm "OK. It's a Rembrandt but it's not one of his really good ones." If it's the Hermitage, I'll make an exception but I'll really start zoning out after a while.
I've found that many of the finer things in life, after a certain point of thing thing serving the purpose well, it's more about variety and taste than one is objectively better than the other. Will a $1000 guitar sound and feel way better than a $100 guitar? Absolutely. Will a $10,000 guitar sound and feel way better than that $1000 guitar? Probably not, more just different. Is a Bugatti Chiron "faster" than a Pagani Huayra ? Sure, in some regards, but they're entirely different cars made to do different things and feel very very different, despite both being "hypercars".
Art is subjective after a certain point of being well-crafted and well-executed. Most food is more or less for utility and much less for art. Fine dining is much more art than utility, just like so many other things in life.
Come on, that's just being contrarian. Sure there's going to be anecdotal exceptions here and there, but yes I'd absolutely expect almost any $1000 guitar to be better in sound and feel than almost any $100 guitar.
Better, almost certainly (I have played a terrible $1000 guitar -- it was a Gretsch and if you have played guitars you know what I mean by this).
But that isn't what the comment I am replying to is saying.
It says absolutely and way better.
And that just isn't supported by evidence if you ask me.
Not least on the playability: if you treat the $100 guitar to the same setup as a $1000 guitar, you may well get an extremely similar experience.
$100 guitars, particularly the ones from Aeirsi, can be extremely good.
OK so the gap between $100 and $1000 is much bigger with acoustic guitars, as you'd expect. (That is if we stipulate there is much of a $100 acoustic guitar market. Can't be many).
But a $100-ish Encore Strat clone in the right hands? not so much.
And it's especially true of lap steel guitars, IMO. Some of the best ones are cheap, some expensive ones are terrible, and the 10x price multiplier adds less than you'd expect.
You're talking about the difference between a Martin and a First Act. Yes, absolutely.
Now if the price distinction had been 1000 and 500 I'd say quality differences could be hit or miss. Even then that's the difference between a Martin and a nice Ovation, I guarantee you the Martin feels and sounds better. You can get a good Fender acoustic for $500 that will feel and sound really good, maybe that comes down to taste. But a $100 guitar? It's a children's toy guaranteed.
The post does not specify acoustic guitars, I would note.
And it says way better as well as absolutely.
Acoustics: the rule is more likely to apply, I will grant you that.
But playability is about setup. Treat a cheap guitar to the same level of setup as you treat an expensive one and the gap could disappear.
Electrics? ehhh. A typical (non-specialist) $1000 electric guitar is a waste of at least $700, and everyone who has bought more than one in the last decade knows it.
Agree about the flavor and ingredients. Reminded me of this vox podcast I listened to recently about the loss of food/flavor diversity, which basically means large scale farming has mostly crowded out all kinds of strange heirloom plant and even animal varieties and their corresponding tastes. I think high end Michelin type restaurants can play a part in preserving a lot of these unusual types of foods and flavors. Even if it becomes a niche thing it’s great to retain unique foods from an evolutionary perspective. Link to the podcast https://pod.link/voxconversations/episode/54c858cc8d026dd5b4...
2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.
That was one of the greater discoveries I've made about expensive restaurants. My wife and I had previously spent over $400 on an anniversary dinner at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle. We're "common as muck", too; just a couple of country hicks from Indiana. It was nice, glad we went, wouldn't likely spend that kind of money on a meal again.
Then I started a job literally across the street in the Exchange building. Boss wants to go the "the Met" for lunch. On my salary?!?! That's when I found out that for $12, one can get one the better burgers one will ever eat. I recommend that steak salad, too.
Vacations work the same :) visit Puerto Rico now because everyone thinks it’s destroyed by natural disaster and political problems. Yeah it’s destroyed, but stunning beaches, resorts, golf courses, restaurants, etc for a fraction of the price.
Best golf course and lunch I’ve ever had were at the royal isabela in PR. Absolute ghost town, but $90 all in. Stunning place.
I escaped to St Martin during the lockdowns. Still damaged from hurricane but rebuilding. French side best side, best food, beaches and people, and extremely affordable. Plus a busy airport with lots of flights because it's where the billionaires park before hopping on their yacht to St Barth (I saw roman abramovich's plane on the tarmac)
This reminds me of a meme I saw a while back with a guy saying he makes vacation plans based on terrorist attacks, after which the tourist population and prices both drop noticeably.
I've heard this one too, but why does that happen? Surely the last place you'd want to do a terrorist attack is somewhere that just experienced one recently? Not only will everyone be on high alert so you're less likely to succeed, but your impact will be diminished since your attack is now getting mixed in with the previous one.
I guess it might be more of a psychological thing of not wanting to go there because it feels weird to vacation at the place of a tragedy, but from a safety perspective, it seems like the best choice.
Lightning doesn't actually seem all that random either. I mean on a small scale, yes, but it seems like general areas are more prone to lightning than others.
All the general touristy stuff is worth doing as it’s all quick and interesting! We stayed a couple days in the city and then almost a week in a tiny tiny group of houses a short walk from the beach just outside of Isabella and enjoyed the quiet. Isabella is basically an 80s tourist town that is now unpopular, perfect for my trip.
Other than that, if the Airbnb price near the city is too good to be true.. avoid it :) not everywhere has recovered well! You can pack light and just buy most of what you need at Walmart also. Very easy and approachable trip.
I think burgers are a great fine dining "hack." Many fine dining establishments have a burger on the menu and it's often really freaking good at a price point significantly less than the other entrees. The best burger in my town is $15 from an upscale sushi place.
steak burgers are great, you pay less to get more, free bread and they've already done some of the chewing for you.
Any other food if you asked for them to chew it for you they'd probably call the police.
I've had it both ways. Either the chef wants to put their own touch on the burger and create something amazing or they hate every customer that is too cheap or tasteless to try anything else on the menu so they serve something you'd find at a amusement park.
If you're at a higher end restaurant the burger is a way to put a cheaper, accessible option on the menu. It's there so that a party of 4 or more can show up and someone who's more price sensitive or less adventurous can still have a good time. (Roast chicken and an entree salad serve similar purposes.)
If it's an insult from the chef, that's pretty bad. Extremely snobby to put it on the menu without putting effort in. Burgers are good and a kitchen can outsource the only hard parts (baking a great bun, and grinding the meat) to their suppliers.
Another comment mentions an Italian restaurant making burgers. Yes I am aware that almost every kebab shack will put on menu pizza too, but come on people...
One of the best burgers I know was the vegetarian portobello burger with blue cheese at the Burger Bar in Amsterdam. € 5.25 a couple of years ago (I don't think they have it anymore). Quality was sadly variable, but when they get it just right, the taste combo was absolutely divine.
I agree 100%. Fine dining should really be framed as part of the entertainment category. You are paying for an experience. Just like people don't talk about the Incan Trail as a $1,000 hike, a Michelin restaurant is not a $150 meal. When framed like this, it is obvious that some people would derive more utility out of a Michelin starred meal as opposed to buying 2-3 new video games.
> Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc.
A hobby of mine is picking a neighborhood and going to every single eatery, from possibly-illegal hole-in-the-walls and popups to fast food chains to bakeries and delis to cafes to fine dining establishments. I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.
Restaurants have to cater to their clientele, even high-end ones. If you offer something creative on your menu, odds are there won't be a large market for it because most people want familiar fare. There are a lot of expensive-yet-conservative Italian restaurants in the US, for example — with lots of patrons who love them! The chefs may chafe at the constraints, but running a restaurant and bringing pleasure and satisfaction to your customers is a different endeavor than exploring the possibilities of cuisine.
If you want to experience unfamiliar flavors, presentations, and ingredients your best bet is to go to places run by and primarily frequented by first-generation immigrants. It's not that such eateries are any more adventurous — the same economic forces constrain them — but they target a clientele with different tastes.
The 80 eateries I've visited in San Diego's City Heights district offered way more variety and novel-to-me fare than the 70 or so restaurants I checked out on a tour of downtown San Diego. That's because City Heights has large enclaves of Mexican, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants, enough to sustain businesses which cater primarily to the tastes of those enclaves.
I can think of some high-end restaurants that had very interesting menus, but in my experience there is only a weak correlation between price and adventurousness. It may be different though for specifically Michelin-starred restaurants, since that's a curated list.
Suggests that, in the US at least, the ethnic enclave suburbs (not the richer ones or the exurbs) are often better choices for food than the trendy downtowns, for that very reason. I'm sure he's right about his home in the DC area, but NYC is its own thing- effectively Queens and Brooklyn function like suburbs in his dining cosmology.
Yes! Other interesting districts in San Diego are Convoy Street in the Kearny Mesa neighborhood and National City, both of which fit that description.
In contrast, I went to 100+ restaurants in the Del Mar area (which is quite wealthy) and while it was a fun experience and I had lots of great food, the breadth wasn't as wide.
> I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.
That's very much a function of location. The last time I checked here in San Francisco there were 12 Michelin restaurants within walking distance of where I live. I suspect the density in Manhatten or Vegas or Paris would be even higher.
I should also note that there is a real difference in food and experience quality between one star Michelin restaurants and three star. At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.
It depends on the restaurant. Some 3 star ones will actually not serve you if you have dietary restrictions as their tasting menu is (apparently) custom made to have a very specific pathway of flavors. They warn you about this on their website before booking.
> At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.
We encountered the purse stool at a one star restaurant, Eipic, in Belfast. Genuinely wondered if the little stools were made solely for holding handbags, or if they had dual purposes.
By analogy, don't think of fine dining as a big-budget blockbuster film. It's not better than other movies by having the biggest setpieces, the most explosions, the hottest stars, and the loudest soundtracks. It's not just more more more.
Think of it more like an arthouse film. Fine dining should be some of the best food you've ever had, but it should also be different from what you've had. Since much of their clientele eats out often, they are seeking not just quality but novelty.
+1 on novelty / variety; fine dining restaurants also change their entire menus a lot and may only keep a few signature dishes between menus. Part of that is due to availability of things and what is in season, part of it is whimsy / novelty / the chef trying out different things.
> 1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food
This cuts both ways. Cheaper, unique or local places shouldn’t be thought of as the same food you’re used to just a different place.
Like if you order an omelette at Waffle House expecting something like you make at home, you’re gonna be disappointed. But that’s not what it’s supposed to be, it just shares a name with that you’re used to.
> Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.
Not all Michelin starred restaurants offer the kind of modernist fare you describe. There are many michelin starred restaurants serving exactly the normal-but-better food.
For example the Michelin starred curries in London tend to fall in the normal-but-much-better category.
Michelin starred sushi is usually normal-but-better, sometimes with weird fish options.
France is full of normal-but-better French restaurants with stars.
That's true, especially among the one-stars and bibs.
On that top comment I was really thinking of tasting menus, which tend to be more out there. There are for sure plenty of places with an a la carte menu of very recognizable roast chicken and steak or whatever.
I think on average in the US, Michelin caliber of places (stars or no) tend more modernist/experimental than in Europe.
I've been to a Michelin star ramen place in Japan. Nothing at all fancy about the place, other than the fact you need to get in line around 6am if you want a seat at noon. When it's time to eat, you punch in the number of the item you want in a very typical Japanese ticket vending machine. You sit down at the bar with about ten others, hand the ticket to the guy at the counter, and soon you're in a rush to eat your ramen. Because everyone is just sucking down their food as if this were your regular corner ramen place and they have to get back to work ASAP. I can't say the ramen was better than any other decent place, since the peer pressure to finish your meal is rather intense. You'll sit there and ponder how the Japanese eat such incredibly hot noodles so quickly.
Tim Ho Wan is another cheap place with a star. They are a chain, even.
My experience with a Michelin star restaurant (Maydan, in DC) was “what I normally eat, but better”—much, much better. The menu items themselves were not exotic (hummus, beet purée, pickled vegetables, ribeye, chicken kabobs), but the execution and complex cascades of flavors were on a whole new level of reality. The prices/portions are generous as well (e.g. $10 for the best hummus you’ve ever tasted, $50 for a cut of ribeye that would cost $30 at Whole Foods).
I guess I should've clarified that I was thinking more of tasting menus on really _different_ comment. There's plenty of places (e.g. maydan, rose's, taro in DC) that have great but perfectly recognizable menus too.
On the other hand I haven't had it in me to blow the money on pineapple and pearls, but if I did i'd want to see something weird =).
Maybe my expectations are off, but I would not expect to find a fantastic ribeye that cheap outside of one or two places I can think of (one of which is in a small village of <3000 people and daily has 2-3 hour waits, no reservations).
Good ribeye, sure, but not steakhouse fantastic ribeye. Seems like a good find indeed!
Rooster & Owl in DC has for the most part has spins on recognizable food and is $75 for a 4 course meal. Each course has a selection of 4 dishes and the food is served family style, so going with a group of 4 allows everyone to try the entire menu.
> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better
When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regarded—I didn't know what to expect. What surprised me was that it was just "what I normally eat" but better. Not fancy, not exotic, not flashy; at a surface level, it was less interesting than food I've had at "normal" restaurants... but it was somehow just better. It surprised me because I hadn't realize just how much room there was to improve on the details and execution of, well, "normal" cooking.
I've occasionally seen something similar with codebases. Most code does what it needs to do, more or less, and hopefully it's not awful, but there are all kinds of sharp edges, inconsistencies, extra sources of friction—when I need to make a change, it's doable, but even the happy path has a bit of extra friction here and there, things that are clearly missing or in the wrong place or a bit hacky. And then, once in a while, I run into code that doesn't have those problems. Everything just somehow comes together; when I need to do something, there's an obvious way of doing it; when there's something odd in the design, it ends up addressing something I hadn't thought about. Somebody wrote the code with experience, attention to detail and the will to do quality work for its own sake. I don't know if it's the same with cooking, but with this kind of code, it generally took less time and effort for the people writing it than I'd expect from teams working on messier codebases.
Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.
> Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.
Right. I am away from home at the moment, staying at a house which doesn't have all the things I need. Like, there are only tiny frying pans, there aren't any spices/condiments/salt etc.
So I have been buying the minimal things I need to cook food I like, and working with what is there.
I took a tin of cheap, mass-produced fish out of the cupboard that I did not buy and was probably a mistaken purchase (everything in that cupboard needs to be used up), and on the basis that wasting food is a crime, I cooked it and added the simplest things alongside; some broccoli and a baguette.
The meal I ate is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it has improved my relationship with food, overnight.
On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool.
So I am glad to hear that your Chez Panisse experience was what it was.
> On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool.
Why?
Does novelty have no value for you?
The Michelin Star restaurant isn't just "different", it's a difference that is hard to find.
What kind of "novelty" is there for _you_ in eating food at an expensive restaurant that is not qualitatively better than that which you can buy more cheaply? That isn't novelty, it's foolishness.
I don't need Michelin star ratings explained to me, I know all about them. I also know that people make dumb decisions when their aspirations, jealousies and FOMO are tickled.
Better is hard to define, as the root parent of this thread says, as you cannot directly compare, say, BBQ, to a molecular gastronomy meal; they are simply in different classes, "better" cannot be compared.
That being said, if you like the food, then eat it, and if not, don't, regardless of whether it's Michelin or not.
Better is subjective and of course a person can compare two different types of restaurants.
You do it every time you go out to determine where you want to go. You compare the two based on value, taste, frequency, and atmosphere.
All subjective of course, but it's a personal preference you can compare.
If the food was awful, the atmosphere or "novelty" was uncomfortable/unenjoyable/mediocre, the price was high in option A, you will feel cheated and would have rather had gone to option B. That experience will influence future decisions when comparing and deciding on a place.
OK but I am not paying extra money for a meal where part of the experience is that some of the food is terrible value and some is amazing, or to eat at a place where (knowing a little of rollercoaster physics) it has actually been carefully planned that way to maximise the thrill and discomfort.
That would be like an ARFID theme park. [0]
Which now I think of it is a good description of this:
Honestly, some of the justifications for the poor value proposition and past poor experiences of "fine dining" really make me chuckle. Food shouldn't be an exam, an IQ test, or a show of sophistication or class. Putting up with being misled by people selling you sophistication but delivering you average food is silly, and yet it happens a lot.
[0] I have ARFID, pretty much totally ignorable now but hell when I was a child.
Oh and for the people who will get snippy and downvote me because I didn't give them a direct link to the wikipedia entry for the acronym they just aren't informed enough to have heard of before, fine, here's your link:
I think Bros is a fine example -- the exception, IMO -- of when the system breaks down. I wouldn't enjoy that experience either. Maybe there are some people who would, I don't know; I'm not going to begrudge them their enjoyment of that kind of experience if that's really their thing. But I would have expected that this sort of experience would be way too niche (in a "the vast majority of people won't like this" way) to warrant Michelin's attention.
By and large, most Michelin-starred restaurants are not like Bros. You get enough food so you don't walk out feeling hungry. The food tastes good, and is cooked beautifully, using high-quality ingredients. And sometimes, yes, depending on the restaurant, they will also do something novel with that food and with flavors.
The hilarious comments on that Bros article actually really warmed my heart, because as funny as it is, I found reading the article just a little bit triggering.
As I say, I battled (and I'm sure my parents battled even more) significantly with ARFID as a child, but as an adult I really eat all sorts of stuff, having learned a lot about food and a bit about cookery, to conquer fear. I don't really have red lines (apart from those dictated by one dietary sensitivity and pretty conclusive lactose intolerance, boo). So dining out is fun.
I might even be less fussy than average because I am comfortable with putting in some pre-restaurant menu research, which has invariably led to me enjoying my choices and exploring new stuff.
But I have learned over time that a lot of people who think they can taste the quality of a thing could not in a blind test, that a lot of people who believe they can pick out specific rare ingredients only think they can because they read the menu, etc.
A lot of people can taste the bill, not the food.
What I am still finely tuned to resent, and I suppose it could be on show here, particularly in my Jay Rayner stanning, is bad experiences being treated snobbishly or in a judgemental way, because that can dig up some difficult memories.
So I am way past being difficult about food -- I'm not a child and I'm not Paul Hollywood. People eat what they like and enjoy what they like, and that is fabulous.
But if serving staff show dismissive tone or body language if any one of my party (it won't be me) asks a question about food that suggests unworldliness or awkwardness or fear of food, they will get the smallest acceptable tip, and I will quietly choose the cheapest things on the menu.
And if food is expensive and sold as the work of experts, but of poor or average quality, I'm not going to sit back and say, well, fine dining is about the experience and it was a novel experience. I'm going to tell people I didn't enjoy it! (Not the staff. They will get told it was "fine", in a non-committal British way that holds multitudes.)
It's not absurd. People value different things, and while sometimes people do get sucked into hype or heavy marketing, sometimes something you think is a waste of money will be an experience someone else will enjoy.
I think framing it as being "better" (or not) than a regular meal doesn't really capture it. I certainly expect the food at a Michelin-starred (or other high-end) establishment to use fresh, high-quality ingredients, and to be seasoned and cooked properly. But I also very much appreciate just eating something different. I cook a decent amount at home, but I probably cook the same 6 or 7 dishes, with some small differences, over and over. When I go out to "normal" restaurants, I eat the same 30-odd dishes over and over.
Not that I don't enjoy all that! I certainly do. But sometimes I just want something drastically different. Flavors and flavor combinations that I don't encounter anywhere else. Specialty ingredients that I would never buy for myself, and aren't usually found in most restaurant meals. And I'm willing to pay a bit extra to get that experience every now and then.
But I think this is also just a false dichotomy. A restaurant isn't going to get a Michelin star just because they do something novel; the food has to be good, too. And some don't try to do novel things, but aspire to be the absolute best at a particular kind of cuisine or dish, and get awarded stars based on that.
I think I’m right in between these two points of view. I’m a reasonably good cook and in many cuisines, I can prepare myself something of restaurant quality at home for a fraction of the price.
But I’m not an artist with food. For me, the novelty comes from seeing what artists can come up with given the space to just create.
Then I get even more value because I can take what I learned and cook it at home. I get to relive the dining experience when I cook. And if I get to cook that dish (or another dish inspired by it) for someone else, I get to share the story again!
We’re all different and our relationships with food are no different so I don’t expect to convince you. I definitely don’t think you’re wrong. But that’s how I get value out of meals I can often prepare myself, even after I’ve thoroughly ripped them off.
I'm not in the camp of "novelty has no value" but also not in the camp of "novelty automatically makes things better or worthwhile"
The only point of novelty is to discover new things I enjoy.
Eating at a fine dining restaurant and coming away with "that wasn't very good but it sure was novel" would be disappointing, and I'd probably think I had wasted my time and money on it compared to going to my favorite restaurant and eating my favorite meal there.
This is probably (partially) attributable to the IKEA-effect [1], where people perceive better quality in the things that they partially create.
Also one of the joys of cooking is that you are experiencing the immediate fruits your own labor. There's no prolonged scrum meetings, release cycles, delayed launches, etc. It such a simple feedback loop that it's a great way to give yourself short-term gratification. I've found even food prep is cathartic to a degree.
One of my favorite meals at a fairly expensive (but definitely not Michelin-level) restaurant was a roast chicken. I got it reluctantly, why should I spend this much on roast chicken? But there wasn't anything else on the limited menu I wanted, of choice of like three mains.
It was the best roast chicken I've ever had, like notably. I still have no idea how you make roast chicken taste that good. I still remember it, honestly in part because of the surprise.
There are also other places where I've had delicious things I've never seen anywhere else, sure.
Most of creating a roast chicken that good is in sourcing the chicken. Breeds optimized for flavor rather than economics, fed a chicken’s natural diet, grown at the chicken’s natural pace, and handled carefully, slaughtered shortly before cooking.
There is technique like injecting the brine and managing the smoke flavors but that’s like 10% of the work of raising the chicken.
I had a similar experience in, of all places, on the road (there's only one!) to Denali, in Alaska years ago.
My wife started feeling ill and there was nothing nearby but we remembered passing a motel about 30 miles back and Denali was at least another 90 minutes away. We went in to get a room for the night and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the place would probably be condemned if it were anywhere else. The price of the room was insane, but it was the only hotel in at least 50 miles so it was either that or sleep in the car.
The only thing I remember specifically from dinner was a smoked chicken and root beer. I love root beer and the menu claimed it was made by a local about 10 miles away.
The quality of the food was incredible.
Yeah, I've never paid $30 for half a chicken before or since, but it was the best chicken I've ever had. So was the root beer and whatever else we had for dinner. Everything they put on that table was absolutely delicious. And this at a tiny roadside motel where we were apparently the only guests.
That's a good example of a slightly different style of fine dining. A restaurant like Chez Panisse is in the vein of classic dishes, great execution. Similar restaurants are Via Carota and Osteria Mozza. You're not gonna get high concept molecular gastronomy at these restaurants.
Another similar category are top notch sushi restaurants. An omakase at a very nice sushi restaurant is not going to have that different of a setup from an omakase at another restaurant. What elevates the sushi is the technique, the quality of the fish, and the quality of the rice. Surprisingly, the rice is one of the more noticeable aspects. In a good sushi restaurant the rice should fall apart in your mouth with the perfect lukewarm temperature.
Part of it too is that restaurants at a certain price point have to be pragmatic with the dishes they are putting out. That means recipes are economized so ingredients are shared, and cheaper alternatives available from restaurant wholesalers are preferred. There's also the time; if you can make a 3 hour dish take 10 minutes to make you will take those compromises.
This actually comes into play with tacos a lot. In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead much less at the pricepoint offered by these vendors (usually like $1.50 a taco) thanks to stuff like rent and more stringent health protocols that would condemn any home kitchen you've eaten out of in your life, so food like that doesn't even really exist in the marketplace otherwise.
> In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead
Huh? Are you under the impression that restaurants don't spend hours prepping their food? It takes a good pizzeria three days to make their dough. You couldn't do that at a roadside stand.
I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities. You're making a correlation vs causation error here -- yes, there are some types of food that you will more typically encounter in food-truck-type situations (e.g. in NYC that'd be something like lamb over rice with white and red sauce), but that's not because restaurants can't do it. There's just market segmentation.
I'm sure some restaurants do actually make proper birria but there is no chance they can afford to pay rent and also offer it for $1.50 a taco like someone whose only expense is materials and labor (and not commercial rent), so I haven't even seen anywhere make a go at this market at this pricepoint. One place I do like for tacos that is a restaurant is itself very barebones, a walkup only shack of a building situated in the parking lot of a liqour store that doesn't have any indoor space except for the small kitchen, and they charge accordingly more than a comparable street vendor (more like $2.50 a taco). This is probably the floor of what a brick and mortar can afford to charge for that tier of meat with involved prep.
I think of road side food vans as equivalent to Indie games. There's a low buy in cost which means that there's much more opportunity for the creativity of the individual can flourish.
One thing restaurants will do that most people at home don't do is use a lot more salt and fat. Salt tastes good, fat tastes good.
I don't know Chez Panisse but for example if you want to improve the taste of pasta you cook at home add a tablespoon or two of salt to the water when you cook it.
I'll do it if I know the sauce is already fairly salty due to its ingredients (cured pork, for example), in order to leave some room for adjustment later. Under-salted food is much easier to fix than over-salted.
One of the key observations in the excellent cookbook/cooking-theory-book "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is that to a certain point, salt doesn't make things taste salty - it just makes them taste more flavorful, more "like themselves". I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.
> I wouldn't be surprised if adding salt to your pasta water didn't change the apparent salt balance of the resulting dish.
In the same chapter, the author also observes that you need to consider the total amount of salt coming from other ingredients, such as the cheese, stocks, or cured meats. Depending on the ingredients, especially cured meats, you might already be working with a lot of salt before you add any of your own.
In my case, there are two considerations at play. (1) I use the pasta water for thickening the sauce, so any salt I put in the pasta water is also going into the sauce at that concentration. (2) I finish the pasta in the already-seasoned sauce before serving, so the pasta isn't going onto the plate unsalted. End result is that I salt the pasta water when I know I have ample head room to work with, which is most times, but not always.
Lol, chez panisse only seems "normal" because everybody copied them. You're eating OG and if it's somehow-better it's because they've perfected the unique farm-to-table supply chain.
Chez Panisse is my favorite famous restaurant for exactly that reason. They're not trying to make things luxurious or amazing or impressive or complicated. It's good quality ingredients cooked simply, the way you would want to eat it every day. Chez Panisse is the anti-Michelin restaurant done right.
I ate at Chez Panisse once six or seven years ago, and, to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what the food was like. It was probably great, but I was there with a group of relatives. We spent the whole time talking, and I neglected to pay attention to the food.
Probably one reason the author of the linked article was able to describe her enjoyment of her meal so well is that she was eating alone.
> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.
On the one hand, no. It really, really, really does need to be qualitatively better food than you can get cheaply. (Especially for a Michelin star, the awarding of which still tends to somewhat resist the reality distortion field around gold-encrusted steaks).
On the other hand, it is motivated reasoning like this kind of thing that gave us Jay Rayner's (wonderfully withering but occasionally joyful) restaurant columns in the Guardian.
It's an absurdity (and a moral hazard, IMO) to ask for people's hard-earned money for food and then not give them food that is better, not just different.
(And just as I expected, I am being modded down for this -- go for it guys)
I guess that's why the word "better" is in quotes.
I've never been to a fancy restaurant and been served food that was cooked worse. It's always been cooked better on any objective measure. But there are quite a lot of dishes that I wouldn't want to eat everyday even if I could afford to. Sometimes it's even been a bit lacklustre even though if you had to look at all the elements, it was all superbly done.
> I've never been to a fancy restaurant and been served food that was cooked worse.
I have, and it's not like I make a habit of fancy restaurants (I'm a freelancer so I don't make a habit of fancy _anything_ now.)
There's a lot of motivated reasoning around food and wine.
People who tell me they can't cook and then cook me a meal are proportionately more likely to outdo the expectations they set than a high-end restaurant; some of the best meals I have had have come from people who tell me they can cook only three things.
Coffee shops often serve coffee that tastes worse than an aeropress at home, but costs more than a whole month's worth of good beans. Home coffee "experts" who are surrounded by the acquisitions of their motivated reasoning don't improve over that aeropress either. And even Aeropress experts make Aeropress coffee worse with their optimisations.
Wine tasting experts sometimes can't tell the difference between red and white wines in blind taste tests, and yet still insist that reds and whites have specific associations.
Fans of "fine dining" are often in the same zone.
Expensive meals in restaurants have a veneer of quality even when the food is average and the service is objectively worse than an Angus Steakhouse.
The truth is that -- like buying your fiancé a diamond ring -- the consumer often falls for their own motivated reasoning, either in making the purchase in the first place or post-justifying it afterwards.
One thing makes food better: eating it with friends or loved ones. And you can do that with sandwiches on a park bench.
In the UK, at least, one Michelin star (or AA rosettes) is more expensive than a regular restaurant but not by a large margin. In fact, in my area, it’s entirely possible to spend the same at a ‘regular’ restaurant. The only difference is wine.
At some places you may even want to set aside money to have a cheeseburger at a fast food joint afterwards.
But that's not a bad thing. Filling you up may be part of a fine dining experience, but it isn't necessarily so, and it's the least interesting part of it.
very much this. If you want a fantastic taco, the truck down the street is as likely to kill it as any linen sit-down, but there are some restaurants which serve up a unique experience you simply cannot get anywhere else.
> well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better
During the early stages of the pandemic when a lot of restaurants switched to carry-out only, Lazy Bear (a two Michelin star restaurant in SF) started Camp Commissary, where you could pick up different food items and meals to go. My wife isn’t into fine dining and would never eat the main tasting menu at their restaurant (which I had once before the pandemic), but she absolutely loved the to go items, because they were essentially what you describe: normal types of food cooked by Michelin star chefs (maybe with a fancy twist, like Morel mushrooms on a grilled cheese or fermented local vegetables).
I had the best pimento cheese chicken biscuit, duck sandwich, pop tarts, blackberry cocktails, snickerdoodle cookie, pea soup, lamb chops, tomato pie, pasta, and pork & beans of my life. There’s got to be a market for regular food cooked REALLY well. We spent tons on that place, and it was worth every penny (well, except one of the salads, which had like two pieces of lettuce and a grape).
I would add that sometimes there are some truly magical food experiences lurking in there if you have an open mind, and Michelin restaurants are a good place to try new things.
A few years ago I ate at the modern in New York. Most of the tasting menu was good, as you might expect, but honestly not particularly memorable.
But they had this one dish, eggs 3 ways or something like that, which was a play on a soft boiled egg with toast, but the egg yolk had caviar and some other stuff in it, and was served with this toasted sourdough…I am salivating 4 years later thinking about it. Truly one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it was something I never would have ordered from a menu.
To your first point, there was an absolute classic (https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2001/oct/14/foodanddrink....) where a Guardian food writer took his kid and their friends to Fat Duck. Two of the kids and the restaurant staff both enjoyed the experience - noting in particular that kids have far fewer preconceptions about what food is "ought to be like" than adult.
Even among Michelin star restaurants, there's a huge variance. Take for example The French Laundry vs Terrapin Creek. The French Laundry is an experience that spans hours. Terrapin Creek is a small cafe that locals can pop into for a sandwich. Both have great food, presentation, and service. But they are completely different experiences.
Would add that in some places, particularly in New York, there are affordable Michelin-rated restaurants, e.g. Casa Enrique [1] or Casa Mono & Bar Jamon [2].
3. Lots of high end restaurants have "happy hours" with half-price meals (or so) on those days that have low points. You can also be a little bit less dressy.
Michelin restaurants can be good value from a certain perspective. I went to a 3 star place in Japan that cost $500 a seat, but there were only 8 seats and two rounds a night, with maybe 6 people behind the counter. You do the math and they're not making much money.
Point 1 is very similar in high end coffee. Sometimes very expensive coffee in the US is substantially better than what you get in the grocery store, but often it's just much different. It might taste like blueberries or strawberry candy or wine. Not necessary better, just weird, hopefully in a whimsical way.
Coffee is definitely one of the items that I've found the lowest correlation between price and perceived quality (as a quasi-distinct measure than my own subjective enjoyment). Even among wines, things on the expensive end that I really don't personally like, I can at least convince myself that there's a reason it has the price that it is. Coffee: no discernible relationship.
I spend a fair amount of money on coffee, but I know what styles and roast levels I like, and I know roasters that do those things well. If you like weird varietals processed with some experimental anaerobic processing method and a light roast, Onyx and Black & White, for example, both do really well with those styles. And they aren't cheap, but I enjoy them. If you favor medium to dark roasts, then Dunkin Donuts brand coffee in the grocery is pretty darn good.
If it isn't better, but just different, then it is most likely just a waste of money. Why did I spent a ton more to have did that isn't as good as the $12 bbq joint? Because it is different?
What I have seen is that the service is usually outstanding and secretary steps above. But the food should also be better as well.
In mathematical terms, there's no well-ordering of restaurants despite what reviewers and the food journalism industry would have us believe. So actually different can have value.
> It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different
The high-end places are not only about 'better' food per se. It's all about the ingredients, the preparation, the presentation, the uniqueness [of the dishes, menu, ingredients, etc] and perhaps as or more important than the food itself is the level of service. Combined, it's the full experience you're paying for, not just 'better' or 'different' food. Essentially, you are paying significantly more to sort of 'upgrade' everything about the entire dining experience. It is not only about the food (Though the food is indeed very important).
I'm so glad this was a positive story, and I'm so happy for the author! I went into it expecting this restaurant to be mocked, since articles like this are usually played as a joke.
No, not everyone can afford to try a Michelin Star restaurant. A lot of Michelin restaurants suck. And you don't have to pay a ton for a good meal; some of the best food I've ever had has cost $10.
However, food is right up there with music as something that connects people. A taste or smell can unlock a memory you thought you lost forever, or create new ones you'll never forget. There's a reason meals are so prominent in movies and literature. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good relationship with food (in fact, for many, the connotations can be quite negative), and I'm so happy for this person that she loved it.
When done right, nice restaurants are an experience. From start to finish, from the food to the drink to the decor to the people, it's closer to going to a Broadway play or art museum than it is a normal meal.
For people who can afford it readily, the experience is almost lost. It can become a status symbol, where the Instagram story is more important than enjoying it. It was so charming to see this through the eyes of someone who had no pretentious goals going into it, and had a wonderful time.
> A taste or smell can unlock a memory you thought you lost forever.
Here for a related personal anecdote and a movie reference.
On a conference trip to Chicago I managed to snag a reservation for a Michelin-starred restaurant (Alinea.) The first appetizer was an unusual-looking canapé sprayed with a white foam, featuring salmon and dill as key flavors. It took me back to my 10-year-old self sitting at my grandparent's Thanksgiving table which included shrimp with grandma-grown dill. The meal tab was pricy, the recall of a grand moment was something akin to priceless.
The movie reference is 'Ratatouille,' where the antagonist restaurant critic has such a moment.
I seem to recall Chef Achatz actually talking about food as an emotional experience given his own trials with cancer and actually losing his ability to taste for awhile. I can't find the interview (or it might have been Chef's table) but I'm pretty sure that informs the style of Alinea.
There are 3 star meals that are just excellent renditions of food, and some that are experimental theaters as much as they are food.
To take two examples from my own eating experience on either end of the spectrum:
- Alinea, in Chicago → the experience is full of surprises, artful experiences, etc. The desert is lowered from the ceiling and involves what is essentially violently making a Jackson Pollock on the table
- Forum, in Hong Kong → on the other hand, there is nothing special or creative about Forum, which executes Cantonese cuisine traditionally and perfects its execution of traditional dining in the 50 years since it's been open
Most of the time, the restaurants are somewhere in the middle, but closer to the Forum end than the Alinea end.
Probably the most innovative and interesting one I've tried is Gaggan, which has since closed but had 2 stars and a ranking as Asia's #1 restaurant, doing a 25-course experimental take on Indian cuisine in Bangkok.
> Probably the most innovative and interesting one I've tried is Gaggan, which has since closed but had 2 stars and a ranking as Asia's #1 restaurant, doing a 25-course experimental take on Indian cuisine in Bangkok.
Gaggan Anand opened another restaurant called "Gaggan Anand". Smaller, more experimental and without his old business partners. https://gaggananand.com/
Perfect description of Forum, it's not creative, certainly not innovative but it really nails the execution to a level that few restaurants can. I find that it really depends on my mood, sometimes I crave a restaurant that's more innovative, more of an artful experience (if you get a chance I recommend Pujol in Mexico (caveat for Pujol, the omakase is amazing, the tasting menu is merely decent and not worth the price) and Fu He Hui in Shanghai), sometimes I just want an Abalone perfectly well cooked and seasoned like in Forum.
> No, not everyone can afford to try a Michelin Star restaurant.
If I'm not mistaken, Good Luck Dim Sum has a Michelin star. If you're already in San Francisco, or if you can get there, then basically everyone can afford it.
There are some cheap Michelin stars in Asia, which were added rather recently after the guide got flak for being too snooty. A few local spots in HK and Singapore cost just a few bucks and have stars (and incredibly long lines).
Also in HK, rather weirdly, mediocre mid range restaurants are rather expensive. So much so, that I've been invited to such restaurants and ended up paying about the same as I'd pay in 3 Michelin starred restaurant like Forum (we average around 70 usd per person for Dim Sum) or Tang Court (about the same).
Much of traditional high-end Chinese dining revolves around status, meaning you can easily pay megabucks for a luxury ingredient like shark's fin or abalone, but the taste and presentation of the $100 dish containing these will otherwise be identical to the $10 one without them.
They gave a Michelin star to a (Hainanese) chicken and rice stall at a hawker market in Singapore. I think it's mostly PR honestly because it wasn't all that interesting. The food was very tasty for sure, but it wasn't particularly refined or unique.
In sf there's Al's place which is affordable, also there's a sushi place in noe Valley that got the bib award. Imo quality wise it's good, just the service is regular. There's also an Indian place down the peninsula that isn't to expensive. Forgot the name and exact town
Haute cuisine is like fine art. You can recognize the skill and significance of the achievement, but taste is still subjective. De gustibus non est disputandum.
I've seen a decent number of really sad-looking folks at Michelin restaurants, usually older couples, just kind of picking at their food and not talking to each other, looking around longingly. I remember a couple quite vividly when my wife and I were having dinner at Pacific’s Edge in Carmel ( https://goo.gl/maps/Bmj5jFPmYGgVfNCJ9 ) and there was a 40-something couple who had just ordered a $500ish bottle of wine, and they both looked as if they couldn't be less interested while trying it. They barely spoke to each other the entire meal, and I just felt kinda bad for them in the same way that I feel for people in dance clubs obviously not enjoying themselves at a literal party.
I've seen many many more people having an absolute blast at fancy restaurants, so that's great. For example, last time we were at Press ( https://g.page/pressnapavalley?share ), we had an amazing meal next to a group of seniors celebrating one of their birthdays and reminiscing about all their adventures together. They were curious about one of our dishes and chatted with us for a few minutes, and we helped them take a photo together.
Life and experiences like these are what you make of them.
> I've seen a decent number of really sad-looking folks at Michelin restaurants, usually older couples, just kind of picking at their food and not talking to each other, looking around longingly. I remember a couple quite vividly when my wife and I were having dinner at Pacific’s Edge in Carmel ( https://goo.gl/maps/Bmj5jFPmYGgVfNCJ9 ) and there was a 40-something couple who had just ordered a $500ish bottle of wine, and they both looked as if they couldn't be less interested while trying it. They barely spoke to each other the entire meal, and I just felt kinda bad for them in the same way that I feel for people in dance clubs obviously not enjoying themselves at a literal party.
Some people are just miserable people. Some people also just spend money because they have it. I've seen people order $3k bottles of wine and leave half on the table and leave. They didn't not enjoy it, they just didn't care.
> Some people are just miserable people. Some people also just spend money because they have it...
True. Further sometimes people are just in miserable situation. Also having money helps them make statement like "meh, it taste like crap anyway". Middle class me would scared to say or imply any such thing at fancy places.
I can think of two that I was quite disappointed with (I won't name them, but both no longer have stars... meaning the system works!). I luckily didn't mind, personally, but if I sacrificed 6 months of takeout for it I would have said it "sucked".
If you live in a city that has it, then a good meal at a Michelin Star restaurant is a very worthwhile and achievable luxury. Go somewhere with a tasting menu (small plates). I’m happy that the author was able to experience it.
In the United States, the Michelin guide awards stars in NYC, Chicago, DC, and California.
But I suspect there is so little money in local news now (partly because of the internet and partly because of the collapse of newspaper-driven local commerce, small ads, all that), that they do not care; they are in a toxic relationship with the only advertising that pays, and to step outside that and construct a local news model that would be sustainable and not abusive to its readers is the stuff of romance novels and Hallmark movies.
With the Reach sites I am surprised by some of the design elements that could be improved even without touching the aggressively bad advertising design, though. The typical "where I live" selector could be so much better.
Honestly, if you think Reach's Live sites are bad, you should see the Gannett/Newsquest ones (www.oxfordmail.co.uk is our nearest). They're a whole league worse.
As much as we love the BBC, it's worth considering that the BBC's website is so comprehensive that it is part of the misfortunes of local independent news.
This is why the moreover.com "news from other websites" bit is on the BBC News site now (though it blows me away how poorly some independent websites populate that one opportunity to be seen, with weird autoscraped content snippets that are often comically weird)
When I was in Italy with my brother back in 2019, we mostly ate at cheap local spots to keep costs down. But towards the end of the trip, I said lets go get some amazing food, regardless of cost.
We walked into this little Italian restaurant, ordered an expensive Merlot and a tomahawk steak to share. First the wine, "holy shit" was the exact words I used when I first tasted it, super smooth, to the point where you couldn't feel even the smallest bit of sting from the alcohol.
Then the steak, the tenderest steak I've ever had. You cut of pieces of fat and as soon as you put it in your mouth the thing just melts away.
In the end dinner set us back 250 euros, and much like this lady, I walked away going "that was worth every penny". Food like that isn't just about the experience, it's also the memory. That dinner I had is now almost 4 years ago but I still remember the wine and the slightly salted steak kisses fingers like an italian
This is how my mother-in-law prepares food. It is a genuine pleasure to eat at her table. The experience, love, and innovation she puts into her recipes are amazing.
I've never had a parent or relative or in-law-equivalent that made me fond of their cooking. Given how much other people associate a good experience with the meals they had prepared by them, I feel like I would love that! But I mostly feel that everyone else is delusional. People really thought I was a picky eater, turns out it was just the local cuisine I guess.
I am glad you had a nice experience and I mean no disrespect, but you went all the way to Italy to overpay a French wine and an American cut...
I guess it means you'll have to go back! Next time go to Florence and order a Fiorentina Steak with a Montepulciano. That's going to be 50€ for two. And, as you said, the memory will last forever.
Now imagine you had that treatment daily. Perhaps it would not excite you as much and it could not possibly be memorable as a mundane experience. Such are advantages of not being able to always afford the best of the best
The wife and I tried a Michelin Star restaurant, along with some restaurants in Toronto without the star, but with tasting menus.
I can mirror the sentiment from this article. Tasting menus are absolutely phenomenal, and worth the money, though of course I couldn't afford to have that every single day.
The idea of paying good money to a chef so they they can thoughtfully procure food instead of buying slabs of meat in bulk, and prepare it in such a way as to arouse the senses, is not really that wild of an idea (perhaps paying a multiple of a standard meal would be offensive to some, I get that.)
My only criticism is that while the food is frickin' amazing, you only get one bite of it, per dish. Maybe two. Maybe that's part of the appeal.
At the famous El Bulli, there was speculation and accusation that they were using toxins and poisons. Vigorously denied of course, but perhaps the small sizes allowed for this level of discretion.
When I read in this article that the author was for sure they weren't using magic mushrooms or some other kind that would cause a more immediate effect, I was thinking “for suuuuure?” I’ll allow it
I think a better way to say it is that it helps you appreciate the large number of courses without getting stuffed or having your senses exhausted.
Imagine going to a concert where the band says they are going to play their entire catalog front to back. If you're about to listen to 50 songs, you probably don't want them to also play the extended versions of each one at full blast if you have any hopes of making it through the show.
> My only criticism is that while the food is frickin' amazing, you only get one bite of it, per dish. Maybe two. Maybe that's part of the appeal.
I mean, there's a limit to how much you can eat before you start feeling bloated and over-full. More food per course = less courses.
Lots of Michelin starred restaurants in Europe offer tasting menus + a la carte menu (ie. menu where you can choose items) with larger portions. In North America though, most high-end restaurants do one or the other.
> Suddenly, they were not tiny little plates of food for big prices. They were experiences, knowledge and expertise, presented in such a way that I could have flown if I wasn't anchored to the restaurant floor by a crisp table topped with stacks of cutlery.
Love this! Her synopsis could have easily gone the other way at “tiny plates of food at big prices”.
The experiences and attention to detail are what I like most about Michelin starred places.
Especially how a place so fancy can have servers that treat you so personably, which is her experience as well. “Lick the plate! I’ll cover for you!”
I’ve been to many places with inferior levels of validation that were much more pretentious, like the Italian places all over America where nothing is in English but you have to pretend you’re cultured enough to just know what everything is - there’s more English on menus in actual Italy! Even in the middle of nowhere!
The last thing is how the servers know when to be present without hovering or interrupting too often or too infrequently. Some places must have secret passages just for the wait staff and servers.
The servers at these kinds of places really are career professionals, and it shows.
Turns out when you really care about something and do it for a long time under the tutelage of experts, you can get literally 10 or 100 times better at, say, serving someone water without being noticed.
They are also, in my experience, just as excited as you are. These people love their work, or they wouldn't be there; they get so happy when people love the food they're serving, and they're always ready to gush with you about how good it is. Very fun interactions.
> The last thing is how the servers know when to be present without hovering or interrupting too often or too infrequently.
Exactly. You can often tell the step up from good to great by whether the servers are intentionally making a show of their presence vs. when you don't notice them other than when you want to.
At one place which should have known better my date and I ended up playing a game of "try to touch the wine bottle before the sommelier would make it to the table" as they insisted on making an annoying show of serving that at first was disruptive rather than helpful, and so we turned to passive aggressive rebellion... But that was funny once - it made me reluctant to go there on dates again.
Conversely at some of the best places I've eaten the serving staff are like ninjas and you hardly even notice your napkin is dirty before it has magically been replaced.
(I've had memorable interactions with servers who knew when to be noticed, so it's not about never being heard or seen, but about understanding when it adds to the experience and when it would interrupt)
One thing I have realised in life is the wide range of expectations or wants of people; some people want/like/demand the show or theatre of the server serving your wine, some dont mind if the server pours it or they pour it, and some just want the server to appear silently put things on the table and go away.
The best figure it out fast and adapt - obviously this all applies to more than just serving food of course.
I think the show can be fine, but it's notable that the kind of excessive focus on being seen at all cost in my experience rarely happens at top restaurants.
They'll put on a show, but it'll be understated, and they'll know when to dial it back because they see you in conversation, and when it's ok to interrupt.
The over the top show is a trademark of second tier restaurants that often are still great, but feel a need to trade on gimmicks as a step up from places where the service is inattentive.
So you go from inattentive to overattentive to well calibrated.
> I’ve been to many places with inferior levels of validation that were much more pretentious, like the Italian places all over America where nothing is in English but you have to pretend you’re cultured enough to just know what everything is - there’s more English on menus in actual Italy! Even in the middle of nowhere!
IMO these are the worst restaurants; wanna-be "fine dining" which simply isn't..
I don't do fine dining either, but what I've noticed at high end places is, much like the author noticed, you get more for your money than you expect, not less.
It's true they don't like to be so crass as to talk about money, but other than the obvious (if you want another drink, it'll cost ya), things offered to you are often without charge. Little tastes of this, more of that. The prices on the menu are high, but it seems that once you've swallowed that, when you receive the bill, it's lower than you expect.
I grew up without exposure to much in the way of luxuries, and as an adult they still feel wasteful. But I've learned this is true of a lot of luxury goods and experiences, part of the high price is all the little extras you weren't even expecting because you're used to what you get at the bare-bones price level.
One notable exception is high end hotels, at least in the US, especially in the pandemic, where the extra cost mostly just seems to be an invitation to get nickeled and dimed on every little thing you do from parking to wifi. It's the 2 and 3 star hotels that throw freebies and conveniences at you.
I think similar to your counter-example are places/things (restaurants/products) that pretend to be fancy and through that pretense give you a worse product than if they had just cut the crap and served you what they could.
I guess it's the tourist trap kind of place generally. They may be 80% of the way there in many ways, but the other 20% consists of so many glaring issues that it ruins the whole experience.
One thing to remember or value when you go to these places is that you're not largely paying for the food. You're paying for 4-5x the people per diner than any normal restaurant -- you're paying for their time to pore over the ingredients more carefully than you would yourself, their time to learn about and explain it to you, their time to come up with amusing and interesting ways to prepare it, their time to wait on you like a sultan and never fail to bore your palate.
Not saying that it's worth it for everyone or that it's even completely justified as they think it is (every artist thinks that any excessive amount they spend on some esoterica is "worth it"), but that's really where your $ are going. Maybe that's the way to think about it -- you're paying for art.
And being one of the few diners who the cost of paying for people's livelihoods is spread over (especially if those people have student loans to pay for) -- that is expensive.
I haven't had the pleasure of eating at a Michelin star restaurant (yet, I fully intend to at some point) but I have eaten at places that could probably get at least one star if they were located in a city where Michelin gave them out.
It is truly an unforgettable experience from start to finish. It's obvious that so much thought and care goes into everything that you can't even really compare it to a regular "nice" restaurant. It's an entirely different class of dining, and this article conveyed it perfectly. Made me want to prioritize getting to an actual Michelin star restaurant.
This person clearly has never been to a Michelin-level restaurant before.
> Very, very expensive theater.
Well yes, it's also theatre. It's a form of art.
The dishes were tiny? You chose the 27-course tasting menu. What did he expect, 27 large portions of lasagne? Most of the article seems to be just about how everything was only small mouthfuls, but this is perfectly normal. Perhaps the same restaurant has an a la carte menu, or a 6-course tasting. That would be different. Here [1] is a video of people eating there, and they are quite satisfied.
PS: of course you can eat rancid things. If you're not willing to try weird stuff you just choose another restaurant. Not a michelin-starred one that is particularly famous for quirky stuff, like Bros.
I've dined at quite a few Michelin-level restaurants and disagree with your take on the piece. Yes, this sort of dining is more akin theatre, and art, and an educational experience. I agree with you that, generally, people shouldn't be surprised at the portion sizes when it's a 27-course meal. That said, there are many notable points that that review makes, much of which should warrant, IMO, a re-examination of whether or not they actually deserve a Michelin star.
Let's start with a look at their post-script at the end of the article, since it's about portion-sizing:
>Note: the TripAdvisor reviews show a lot of elaborate courses, and these were all way, way more food than anything we ate. I cannot express to you how little we were fed, and I’m not a particularly big eater. Allergy and dietary restrictions were largely ignored.
>The servers will not explain to you what the hell is going on.
>When a member of our party stood up during the lengthy stretch between courses to go have a cigarette outside, and was scolded to sit down.
>When one member of our party was served nothing for three consecutive courses, because they couldn’t figure out how to accommodate her food allergies.
>When Rand was served food he was allergic to, repeatedly, because they didn’t care enough to accommodate his.
I've never seen a Michelin-level restaurant just flat-out not serve a guest a course (in this case multiple - three!) because of their dietary restrictions, nor have I seen a Michelin-level restaurant "forget" about said restriction.
>When a server reprimanded me for eating. These reconstituted orange slices (one per person) were a course. I asked if I could eat the real orange that had been served alongside it (we’d all gotten one, and I, at this point, was extremely hungry). “Yes,” the server said, annoyed. “But you aren’t really supposed to.” He let me have two segments and then whisked the fruit away.
So they served edible food and then took it away before people were finished eating?
>That’s the problem with a tasting menu. With so many courses, you just assume things are going to turn around. Every dish is a chance for redemption. Maybe this meal was like Nic Cage’s career – you have to wait a really long time for the good stuff, but there is good stuff.
Clearly the servers were not communicating the progress of the meal to the guests:
>“Would you like red or white?” the server asked.
>“What are we having for the main?” she inquired.
>His face blanched.
>“The… main, madame? Um… we’re about to move on to dessert.”
Or this description-less explanation of a dish from a server:
>“We’ve infused these droplets with meat molecules,” the server explained, and left.
>... and a dish called “frozen air” which literally melted before you could eat it...
>P.S. – The next day, one of the staff tried contacting the only single female member of our party via Instagram messages. “Hey, I served you last night!”
I mean, there's art [nods head], and then there's art [shakes head]. If you take the time to read the article, it's apparent that these guests have dined at tasting-menu establishments before, perhaps even Michelin-level spots. But to be fair to them, Lecce absolutely does seem like it's trying entirely too damned hard to be over the top in a way that is detrimental to itself.
People should read about restaurants before they go... That restaurant is particularly known for very provocative 'artful' food. There's plenty of traditional fine dining restaurants in Italy.
It's been two years since I've eaten at a restaurant, and about five years before that. When I do go the food is quite memorable, compared to home cooking. If you want to make restaurant visits special just make them rare. Michelin restaurants are for people further down that particular hedonistic treadmill than me.
I tried a Michelin star restaurant once and, pardon the pun, it left a really sour taste in my mouth. We were warned by friends who had been there before to eat a little something before going. We did and even so we were still starving throughout and after. It's hard to concentrate on delicate flavours and nuances when you're really hungry and it's 20 minutes between each spoonful of food for 4 hours. There were lots of other criticisms but that was the biggest one. I felt thoroughly dissastisfied by the end.
A three star restaurant really is something different. It’s not just the experience, the quality and consistency is just something that’s hard to find elsewhere.
The best cup of black coffee I’ve ever had was at a three star restaurant. It was just a simple cup of coffee but it was just made completely perfectly. Great beans I’m sure, a good roast, brewed exactly the right way. You can of course get that outside of a Michelin starred restaurant easily, but the point is in a three star restaurant everything is perfect, even the cup of coffee you have after dinner. They didn’t teen me where the beans were from or who roasted it, it was pedestrian for them.
Michelin also gives out an award for 'good quality, good value restaurants', called the Bib Gourmand, which is worth looking into. Bib Gourmand restaurants are often still a bit more expensive than the average restaurant in a place, but are generally of very very good quality and value for money.
One of my first fine dining experiences was similar. A date for my wife and I paid for by my employer after a weekend ruined by an outage. I had steak tartare (fixed!) for the first time. I had cognac (outside of cheap cognac in a mixed drink) for the first time. A family at a nearby table had sweaters tied around their shoulders and were literally discussing their yacht club.
As someone who grew up with public school teachers for parents and corn fields surrounding my house, it was transcendental. The staff was just as lovely as the food, and it's easily the best gift I've ever gotten from an employer.
Apologies for being an internet corrector, but it's actually "tartare," from the old French belief (or perhaps joke) that the Golden Horde Tatars didn't have time to cook their meat when on the move. So they just softened it under their saddles as they rode, then ate it raw.
Kind of funny that such a now-fancy food is supposed to taste as if you ate it from under a nomad's butt.
I've been to (as best I can remember) three Michelin starred restaurants in my life:
Sierra Mar in Big Sur, California, Il Bucco in Sorrento, Italy (for my honeymoon), and Schwa in my hometown of Chicago.
Schwa is very unlike a typical Michelin place; I'm surprised it's starred. My understanding is that Michelin heavily weights service and ambience, neither of which are, uh, specialties of Schwa; it's the most downmarket tasting menu place I've ever been to (that's not to take anything away from it; I liked Schwa more than I liked Alinea).
I went to a Michelin-starred vegan restaurant in Berlin (on the wall was a mural spelling the F-word and you had to walk through a warehouse to "find" the place) and it was really good. The wine was also very good. I wasn't "crying" but it sure was the best meal I ever had from a mere taste standpoint.
Whether it's worth it depends entirely on how much money you have. If you are FAANG Engineer rich, you could probably eat there every day if you'd wanted to. In that case, yeah it's worth it.
If you earn the median salary in the EU, then nah.
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[ 0.81 ms ] story [ 274 ms ] threadMy home town has a very cheap Michelin-starred restaurant by the standards of restaurants of that calibre but it's still fairly pricey.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/hawker-chan-singapore...
1. Don't go into a michelin level restaurant expecting "well it's expensive so it should be what I normally eat but better", think of it as its own category of food, that happens to have a really high buy-in price. Lots more crazy flavors, presentation, exotic ingredients, etc. It's not that it has to be 'better' than the best $12 bbq joint you've ever been to, just different.
2. Many very high end restaurants have great lunch deals, which can really cut the price to try them.
I didn't get point 1 til years later, after more reading. I'd tried uber fancy restaurants a few times, and each time left disappointed and really almost feeling cheated. Odd flavors (to me), small portions, a lot of art on the plate. I never really judged it based on anything but the value and taste, and if you do that, you'll likely be disappointed as I was.
I guess I realized I'm just a simple guy who likes common foods, but hey, we're all different.
Perhaps the deception is on thinking that any “excellent” restaurant will be pleasing to everyone who can afford it. If you don’t like oysters the best oyster spot in the world will be pretty meh, same way if you’re not into trendy stuff, the price tag won’t make it magically work for you.
Well said!
Also, don't be the guy who goes in on a mission to dunk on the expensive restaurant. That's about as cool as the person who watches a popular TV show just so they can smugly complain about it. Just don't.
Don't burst your bubble, right? Jay Rayner would like a word :-)
The west's fetishisation of fine dining is so far away from the Japanese model that it allows for this idea that the most expensive thing can still be unsatisfying, laughable or misleading, because it's "in its own category".
It is a trope to say "people starve elsewhere in the world" but it is also a truism. If expensive food is not objectively better food, reject it, and seek better food that isn't expensive.
Japanese gourmets definitely do the "ridiculously expensive, questionable choice" thing too. The beef episode made me want to cry.
Not in my world, no. In fact the expectations should be higher so it better deliver much higher quality of food.
the best meal i ever had in my life was at Bar Crudo on Divis in SF. owners pivoted to a taco place, for reasons unfathomable to me. had a dinner that blew my conception of food open, went to a show nearby after.
got home at 3AM and made myself a bit of sausage and toast and to my surprise the experience of my prior meal persisted, and in contrast my late night snack seemed like it was made of cardboard.
It is a bit odd to wear a tux or suit to an In-N-Out at midnight, but after a few times you get used to it.
I'd be happy to eat elsewhere as well, but there aren't a lot of options at midnight.
Five Guys has very crispy and tasty fries — especially the cajun style — that are not double fried. [2]
1: https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/this-is-how-mcdonalds-mak...
2: https://www.delish.com/uk/food-news/a37315383/how-five-guys-...
An example is high end Italian places will often have a pasta section at say 20-40/item and entree's 30-100's, and you think you can just order a pasta and have a good meal. Except you're really intended to order a couple appetizers, a pasta meal each and an entree. It's not them trying to take all your money, but it's what the normal clientele expect. It's also often what the food quality/prices demand.
If it's a truly good restaurant (and not just an expensive one), you shouldn't be coming away hungry.
It's a bit like an art museum. You can go get a ticket to the Hermitage, and you would probably need 3 full days to see every single thing in it.
For the same price, there might be some museum that shows only a few paintings.
Does that mean the bigger museum the better the value? Kind of? If the goal is to get an experience, there are many ways to experience some emotions (and in the restaurant's case flavours) that won't lead to thorough "satiation", but would still be novel.
Some museums are like that, and you'll want to go see an Avengers movie afterwards to satisfy your entertainment.
Some restaurants are like that, and you'll hit MacDonalds on teh way back.
But more often than not, Michelin-echelon restaurants will overwhelm you with a ton of tiny courses, by the end of which you will be fairly adequately stuffed.
Very much like wine.
Art is subjective after a certain point of being well-crafted and well-executed. Most food is more or less for utility and much less for art. Fine dining is much more art than utility, just like so many other things in life.
Nope. Not absolutely. Not even close.
Better, almost certainly (I have played a terrible $1000 guitar -- it was a Gretsch and if you have played guitars you know what I mean by this).
But that isn't what the comment I am replying to is saying.
It says absolutely and way better.
And that just isn't supported by evidence if you ask me.
Not least on the playability: if you treat the $100 guitar to the same setup as a $1000 guitar, you may well get an extremely similar experience.
$100 guitars, particularly the ones from Aeirsi, can be extremely good.
OK so the gap between $100 and $1000 is much bigger with acoustic guitars, as you'd expect. (That is if we stipulate there is much of a $100 acoustic guitar market. Can't be many).
But a $100-ish Encore Strat clone in the right hands? not so much.
And it's especially true of lap steel guitars, IMO. Some of the best ones are cheap, some expensive ones are terrible, and the 10x price multiplier adds less than you'd expect.
Now if the price distinction had been 1000 and 500 I'd say quality differences could be hit or miss. Even then that's the difference between a Martin and a nice Ovation, I guarantee you the Martin feels and sounds better. You can get a good Fender acoustic for $500 that will feel and sound really good, maybe that comes down to taste. But a $100 guitar? It's a children's toy guaranteed.
And it says way better as well as absolutely.
Acoustics: the rule is more likely to apply, I will grant you that.
But playability is about setup. Treat a cheap guitar to the same level of setup as you treat an expensive one and the gap could disappear.
Electrics? ehhh. A typical (non-specialist) $1000 electric guitar is a waste of at least $700, and everyone who has bought more than one in the last decade knows it.
That was one of the greater discoveries I've made about expensive restaurants. My wife and I had previously spent over $400 on an anniversary dinner at the Metropolitan Grill in Seattle. We're "common as muck", too; just a couple of country hicks from Indiana. It was nice, glad we went, wouldn't likely spend that kind of money on a meal again.
Then I started a job literally across the street in the Exchange building. Boss wants to go the "the Met" for lunch. On my salary?!?! That's when I found out that for $12, one can get one the better burgers one will ever eat. I recommend that steak salad, too.
* Note: all prices from like ten years ago.
Best golf course and lunch I’ve ever had were at the royal isabela in PR. Absolute ghost town, but $90 all in. Stunning place.
I guess it might be more of a psychological thing of not wanting to go there because it feels weird to vacation at the place of a tragedy, but from a safety perspective, it seems like the best choice.
I’m like “is the smart or crazy?” And the US embassy is advising people to avoid travel because of terrorism.
And I’m still not sure if it’s smart or crazy, but my wife says “no fucking way” and she’s smarter than I am so she’s probably right.
US travel advisory lists terrorism as one of the risk factors for Sri Lanka https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/... but it does the same for Germany https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/... In fact Sri Lanka is at Level 3 (Reconsider Travel) and Germany is at Level 4 - Do not travel! The level difference is due to Covid though
https://youtu.be/AyecklLMuI4
Other than that, if the Airbnb price near the city is too good to be true.. avoid it :) not everywhere has recovered well! You can pack light and just buy most of what you need at Walmart also. Very easy and approachable trip.
If it's an insult from the chef, that's pretty bad. Extremely snobby to put it on the menu without putting effort in. Burgers are good and a kitchen can outsource the only hard parts (baking a great bun, and grinding the meat) to their suppliers.
Page two, see "Daily Specials". If you only get one dish, then, yes, it seems possible to eat for less than 25 USD with a tip.
Edit: why on earth did anyone flag this?
A hobby of mine is picking a neighborhood and going to every single eatery, from possibly-illegal hole-in-the-walls and popups to fast food chains to bakeries and delis to cafes to fine dining establishments. I think I've only been to one Michelin-starred restaurant though — there aren't a lot of those.
Restaurants have to cater to their clientele, even high-end ones. If you offer something creative on your menu, odds are there won't be a large market for it because most people want familiar fare. There are a lot of expensive-yet-conservative Italian restaurants in the US, for example — with lots of patrons who love them! The chefs may chafe at the constraints, but running a restaurant and bringing pleasure and satisfaction to your customers is a different endeavor than exploring the possibilities of cuisine.
If you want to experience unfamiliar flavors, presentations, and ingredients your best bet is to go to places run by and primarily frequented by first-generation immigrants. It's not that such eateries are any more adventurous — the same economic forces constrain them — but they target a clientele with different tastes.
The 80 eateries I've visited in San Diego's City Heights district offered way more variety and novel-to-me fare than the 70 or so restaurants I checked out on a tour of downtown San Diego. That's because City Heights has large enclaves of Mexican, Vietnamese and Somali immigrants, enough to sustain businesses which cater primarily to the tastes of those enclaves.
I can think of some high-end restaurants that had very interesting menus, but in my experience there is only a weak correlation between price and adventurousness. It may be different though for specifically Michelin-starred restaurants, since that's a curated list.
Suggests that, in the US at least, the ethnic enclave suburbs (not the richer ones or the exurbs) are often better choices for food than the trendy downtowns, for that very reason. I'm sure he's right about his home in the DC area, but NYC is its own thing- effectively Queens and Brooklyn function like suburbs in his dining cosmology.
In contrast, I went to 100+ restaurants in the Del Mar area (which is quite wealthy) and while it was a fun experience and I had lots of great food, the breadth wasn't as wide.
That's very much a function of location. The last time I checked here in San Francisco there were 12 Michelin restaurants within walking distance of where I live. I suspect the density in Manhatten or Vegas or Paris would be even higher.
I should also note that there is a real difference in food and experience quality between one star Michelin restaurants and three star. At the three star joints your dates purse gets its own stool. I'm not even joking.
"We're a party of 6 with 3 different food allergies, and one each of a pescetarian, vegan, vegetarian, omnivore, devout Jew/Muslim and devout Hindu."
I only slightly exaggerate vs. personal experience.
We encountered the purse stool at a one star restaurant, Eipic, in Belfast. Genuinely wondered if the little stools were made solely for holding handbags, or if they had dual purposes.
By analogy, don't think of fine dining as a big-budget blockbuster film. It's not better than other movies by having the biggest setpieces, the most explosions, the hottest stars, and the loudest soundtracks. It's not just more more more.
Think of it more like an arthouse film. Fine dining should be some of the best food you've ever had, but it should also be different from what you've had. Since much of their clientele eats out often, they are seeking not just quality but novelty.
This cuts both ways. Cheaper, unique or local places shouldn’t be thought of as the same food you’re used to just a different place.
Like if you order an omelette at Waffle House expecting something like you make at home, you’re gonna be disappointed. But that’s not what it’s supposed to be, it just shares a name with that you’re used to.
Not all Michelin starred restaurants offer the kind of modernist fare you describe. There are many michelin starred restaurants serving exactly the normal-but-better food.
For example the Michelin starred curries in London tend to fall in the normal-but-much-better category.
Michelin starred sushi is usually normal-but-better, sometimes with weird fish options.
France is full of normal-but-better French restaurants with stars.
On that top comment I was really thinking of tasting menus, which tend to be more out there. There are for sure plenty of places with an a la carte menu of very recognizable roast chicken and steak or whatever.
I think on average in the US, Michelin caliber of places (stars or no) tend more modernist/experimental than in Europe.
Tim Ho Wan is another cheap place with a star. They are a chain, even.
On the other hand I haven't had it in me to blow the money on pineapple and pearls, but if I did i'd want to see something weird =).
Good ribeye, sure, but not steakhouse fantastic ribeye. Seems like a good find indeed!
An older man has been grilling Ribeyes out the back door for like sixty years or something, I think only two days per week.
It comes on a styrofoam plate with no sides. You eat it in an ugly back room on cafeteria chairs, past the stand of ho-hos.
It's like $20.
When I went to Chez Panisse for the first time—not Michelin starred, but still well-regarded—I didn't know what to expect. What surprised me was that it was just "what I normally eat" but better. Not fancy, not exotic, not flashy; at a surface level, it was less interesting than food I've had at "normal" restaurants... but it was somehow just better. It surprised me because I hadn't realize just how much room there was to improve on the details and execution of, well, "normal" cooking.
I've occasionally seen something similar with codebases. Most code does what it needs to do, more or less, and hopefully it's not awful, but there are all kinds of sharp edges, inconsistencies, extra sources of friction—when I need to make a change, it's doable, but even the happy path has a bit of extra friction here and there, things that are clearly missing or in the wrong place or a bit hacky. And then, once in a while, I run into code that doesn't have those problems. Everything just somehow comes together; when I need to do something, there's an obvious way of doing it; when there's something odd in the design, it ends up addressing something I hadn't thought about. Somebody wrote the code with experience, attention to detail and the will to do quality work for its own sake. I don't know if it's the same with cooking, but with this kind of code, it generally took less time and effort for the people writing it than I'd expect from teams working on messier codebases.
Running into things like this is a visceral reminder that even "normal" things—normal food, normal code—can just be better. A lot.
Right. I am away from home at the moment, staying at a house which doesn't have all the things I need. Like, there are only tiny frying pans, there aren't any spices/condiments/salt etc.
So I have been buying the minimal things I need to cook food I like, and working with what is there.
I took a tin of cheap, mass-produced fish out of the cupboard that I did not buy and was probably a mistaken purchase (everything in that cupboard needs to be used up), and on the basis that wasting food is a crime, I cooked it and added the simplest things alongside; some broccoli and a baguette.
The meal I ate is one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it has improved my relationship with food, overnight.
On that basis, if I go to an expensive restaurant and do not get food that is qualitatively better and not just different and in its own category, then I am being taken for a fool.
So I am glad to hear that your Chez Panisse experience was what it was.
Why?
Does novelty have no value for you?
The Michelin Star restaurant isn't just "different", it's a difference that is hard to find.
Michelin Star ratings:
1 Star: Worth a stop when you are driving.
2 Star: Worth a detour when you are driving.
3 Star: Worth a dedicated trip.
Price is, as with everything, supply vs demand.
> Does novelty have no value for you?
Absurd.
What kind of "novelty" is there for _you_ in eating food at an expensive restaurant that is not qualitatively better than that which you can buy more cheaply? That isn't novelty, it's foolishness.
I don't need Michelin star ratings explained to me, I know all about them. I also know that people make dumb decisions when their aspirations, jealousies and FOMO are tickled.
That being said, if you like the food, then eat it, and if not, don't, regardless of whether it's Michelin or not.
You do it every time you go out to determine where you want to go. You compare the two based on value, taste, frequency, and atmosphere.
All subjective of course, but it's a personal preference you can compare.
If the food was awful, the atmosphere or "novelty" was uncomfortable/unenjoyable/mediocre, the price was high in option A, you will feel cheated and would have rather had gone to option B. That experience will influence future decisions when comparing and deciding on a place.
That would be like an ARFID theme park. [0]
Which now I think of it is a good description of this:
https://everywhereist.com/2021/12/bros-restaurant-lecce-we-e...
Honestly, some of the justifications for the poor value proposition and past poor experiences of "fine dining" really make me chuckle. Food shouldn't be an exam, an IQ test, or a show of sophistication or class. Putting up with being misled by people selling you sophistication but delivering you average food is silly, and yet it happens a lot.
[0] I have ARFID, pretty much totally ignorable now but hell when I was a child.
Oh and for the people who will get snippy and downvote me because I didn't give them a direct link to the wikipedia entry for the acronym they just aren't informed enough to have heard of before, fine, here's your link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant/restrictive_food_inta...
By and large, most Michelin-starred restaurants are not like Bros. You get enough food so you don't walk out feeling hungry. The food tastes good, and is cooked beautifully, using high-quality ingredients. And sometimes, yes, depending on the restaurant, they will also do something novel with that food and with flavors.
As I say, I battled (and I'm sure my parents battled even more) significantly with ARFID as a child, but as an adult I really eat all sorts of stuff, having learned a lot about food and a bit about cookery, to conquer fear. I don't really have red lines (apart from those dictated by one dietary sensitivity and pretty conclusive lactose intolerance, boo). So dining out is fun.
I might even be less fussy than average because I am comfortable with putting in some pre-restaurant menu research, which has invariably led to me enjoying my choices and exploring new stuff.
But I have learned over time that a lot of people who think they can taste the quality of a thing could not in a blind test, that a lot of people who believe they can pick out specific rare ingredients only think they can because they read the menu, etc.
A lot of people can taste the bill, not the food.
What I am still finely tuned to resent, and I suppose it could be on show here, particularly in my Jay Rayner stanning, is bad experiences being treated snobbishly or in a judgemental way, because that can dig up some difficult memories.
So I am way past being difficult about food -- I'm not a child and I'm not Paul Hollywood. People eat what they like and enjoy what they like, and that is fabulous.
But if serving staff show dismissive tone or body language if any one of my party (it won't be me) asks a question about food that suggests unworldliness or awkwardness or fear of food, they will get the smallest acceptable tip, and I will quietly choose the cheapest things on the menu.
And if food is expensive and sold as the work of experts, but of poor or average quality, I'm not going to sit back and say, well, fine dining is about the experience and it was a novel experience. I'm going to tell people I didn't enjoy it! (Not the staff. They will get told it was "fine", in a non-committal British way that holds multitudes.)
I think framing it as being "better" (or not) than a regular meal doesn't really capture it. I certainly expect the food at a Michelin-starred (or other high-end) establishment to use fresh, high-quality ingredients, and to be seasoned and cooked properly. But I also very much appreciate just eating something different. I cook a decent amount at home, but I probably cook the same 6 or 7 dishes, with some small differences, over and over. When I go out to "normal" restaurants, I eat the same 30-odd dishes over and over.
Not that I don't enjoy all that! I certainly do. But sometimes I just want something drastically different. Flavors and flavor combinations that I don't encounter anywhere else. Specialty ingredients that I would never buy for myself, and aren't usually found in most restaurant meals. And I'm willing to pay a bit extra to get that experience every now and then.
But I think this is also just a false dichotomy. A restaurant isn't going to get a Michelin star just because they do something novel; the food has to be good, too. And some don't try to do novel things, but aspire to be the absolute best at a particular kind of cuisine or dish, and get awarded stars based on that.
But I’m not an artist with food. For me, the novelty comes from seeing what artists can come up with given the space to just create.
Then I get even more value because I can take what I learned and cook it at home. I get to relive the dining experience when I cook. And if I get to cook that dish (or another dish inspired by it) for someone else, I get to share the story again!
We’re all different and our relationships with food are no different so I don’t expect to convince you. I definitely don’t think you’re wrong. But that’s how I get value out of meals I can often prepare myself, even after I’ve thoroughly ripped them off.
I'm not in the camp of "novelty has no value" but also not in the camp of "novelty automatically makes things better or worthwhile"
The only point of novelty is to discover new things I enjoy.
Eating at a fine dining restaurant and coming away with "that wasn't very good but it sure was novel" would be disappointing, and I'd probably think I had wasted my time and money on it compared to going to my favorite restaurant and eating my favorite meal there.
Also one of the joys of cooking is that you are experiencing the immediate fruits your own labor. There's no prolonged scrum meetings, release cycles, delayed launches, etc. It such a simple feedback loop that it's a great way to give yourself short-term gratification. I've found even food prep is cathartic to a degree.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect
Or it just tasted nice ;-)
One of my favorite meals at a fairly expensive (but definitely not Michelin-level) restaurant was a roast chicken. I got it reluctantly, why should I spend this much on roast chicken? But there wasn't anything else on the limited menu I wanted, of choice of like three mains.
It was the best roast chicken I've ever had, like notably. I still have no idea how you make roast chicken taste that good. I still remember it, honestly in part because of the surprise.
There are also other places where I've had delicious things I've never seen anywhere else, sure.
There is technique like injecting the brine and managing the smoke flavors but that’s like 10% of the work of raising the chicken.
Thinking it might be worth raising a few on pasture just to check the difference in taste. Maybe this'll be the year!
My wife started feeling ill and there was nothing nearby but we remembered passing a motel about 30 miles back and Denali was at least another 90 minutes away. We went in to get a room for the night and I'm not exaggerating when I say that the place would probably be condemned if it were anywhere else. The price of the room was insane, but it was the only hotel in at least 50 miles so it was either that or sleep in the car.
The only thing I remember specifically from dinner was a smoked chicken and root beer. I love root beer and the menu claimed it was made by a local about 10 miles away.
The quality of the food was incredible.
Yeah, I've never paid $30 for half a chicken before or since, but it was the best chicken I've ever had. So was the root beer and whatever else we had for dinner. Everything they put on that table was absolutely delicious. And this at a tiny roadside motel where we were apparently the only guests.
Wish I could remember the name of that place.
Another similar category are top notch sushi restaurants. An omakase at a very nice sushi restaurant is not going to have that different of a setup from an omakase at another restaurant. What elevates the sushi is the technique, the quality of the fish, and the quality of the rice. Surprisingly, the rice is one of the more noticeable aspects. In a good sushi restaurant the rice should fall apart in your mouth with the perfect lukewarm temperature.
This actually comes into play with tacos a lot. In LA at least, some of the best tasting meat, specialty stuff like birria with actual goat stewed for hours with love with traditional techniques perhaps, is not going to be easily found in any restaurant. You will find it served in tin foil or styrofoam off a folding table under a canopy tent on the sidewalk. They start stewing the meat on site hours before even making their first sale, which might even be well after the sun has set. The restaurant model cannot afford this overhead much less at the pricepoint offered by these vendors (usually like $1.50 a taco) thanks to stuff like rent and more stringent health protocols that would condemn any home kitchen you've eaten out of in your life, so food like that doesn't even really exist in the marketplace otherwise.
Huh? Are you under the impression that restaurants don't spend hours prepping their food? It takes a good pizzeria three days to make their dough. You couldn't do that at a roadside stand.
I can't think of a single dish that you can make at a roadside stand but not in a restaurant with significantly better facilities. You're making a correlation vs causation error here -- yes, there are some types of food that you will more typically encounter in food-truck-type situations (e.g. in NYC that'd be something like lamb over rice with white and red sauce), but that's not because restaurants can't do it. There's just market segmentation.
Put a price constraint on it, and you probably agree with the parent poster.
I don't know Chez Panisse but for example if you want to improve the taste of pasta you cook at home add a tablespoon or two of salt to the water when you cook it.
In the same chapter, the author also observes that you need to consider the total amount of salt coming from other ingredients, such as the cheese, stocks, or cured meats. Depending on the ingredients, especially cured meats, you might already be working with a lot of salt before you add any of your own.
In my case, there are two considerations at play. (1) I use the pasta water for thickening the sauce, so any salt I put in the pasta water is also going into the sauce at that concentration. (2) I finish the pasta in the already-seasoned sauce before serving, so the pasta isn't going onto the plate unsalted. End result is that I salt the pasta water when I know I have ample head room to work with, which is most times, but not always.
Probably one reason the author of the linked article was able to describe her enjoyment of her meal so well is that she was eating alone.
On the one hand, no. It really, really, really does need to be qualitatively better food than you can get cheaply. (Especially for a Michelin star, the awarding of which still tends to somewhat resist the reality distortion field around gold-encrusted steaks).
On the other hand, it is motivated reasoning like this kind of thing that gave us Jay Rayner's (wonderfully withering but occasionally joyful) restaurant columns in the Guardian.
It's an absurdity (and a moral hazard, IMO) to ask for people's hard-earned money for food and then not give them food that is better, not just different.
(And just as I expected, I am being modded down for this -- go for it guys)
I've never been to a fancy restaurant and been served food that was cooked worse. It's always been cooked better on any objective measure. But there are quite a lot of dishes that I wouldn't want to eat everyday even if I could afford to. Sometimes it's even been a bit lacklustre even though if you had to look at all the elements, it was all superbly done.
I have, and it's not like I make a habit of fancy restaurants (I'm a freelancer so I don't make a habit of fancy _anything_ now.)
There's a lot of motivated reasoning around food and wine.
People who tell me they can't cook and then cook me a meal are proportionately more likely to outdo the expectations they set than a high-end restaurant; some of the best meals I have had have come from people who tell me they can cook only three things.
Coffee shops often serve coffee that tastes worse than an aeropress at home, but costs more than a whole month's worth of good beans. Home coffee "experts" who are surrounded by the acquisitions of their motivated reasoning don't improve over that aeropress either. And even Aeropress experts make Aeropress coffee worse with their optimisations.
Wine tasting experts sometimes can't tell the difference between red and white wines in blind taste tests, and yet still insist that reds and whites have specific associations.
Fans of "fine dining" are often in the same zone.
Expensive meals in restaurants have a veneer of quality even when the food is average and the service is objectively worse than an Angus Steakhouse.
The truth is that -- like buying your fiancé a diamond ring -- the consumer often falls for their own motivated reasoning, either in making the purchase in the first place or post-justifying it afterwards.
One thing makes food better: eating it with friends or loved ones. And you can do that with sandwiches on a park bench.
But that's not a bad thing. Filling you up may be part of a fine dining experience, but it isn't necessarily so, and it's the least interesting part of it.
During the early stages of the pandemic when a lot of restaurants switched to carry-out only, Lazy Bear (a two Michelin star restaurant in SF) started Camp Commissary, where you could pick up different food items and meals to go. My wife isn’t into fine dining and would never eat the main tasting menu at their restaurant (which I had once before the pandemic), but she absolutely loved the to go items, because they were essentially what you describe: normal types of food cooked by Michelin star chefs (maybe with a fancy twist, like Morel mushrooms on a grilled cheese or fermented local vegetables).
I had the best pimento cheese chicken biscuit, duck sandwich, pop tarts, blackberry cocktails, snickerdoodle cookie, pea soup, lamb chops, tomato pie, pasta, and pork & beans of my life. There’s got to be a market for regular food cooked REALLY well. We spent tons on that place, and it was worth every penny (well, except one of the salads, which had like two pieces of lettuce and a grape).
A few years ago I ate at the modern in New York. Most of the tasting menu was good, as you might expect, but honestly not particularly memorable.
But they had this one dish, eggs 3 ways or something like that, which was a play on a soft boiled egg with toast, but the egg yolk had caviar and some other stuff in it, and was served with this toasted sourdough…I am salivating 4 years later thinking about it. Truly one of the best things I have ever eaten, and it was something I never would have ordered from a menu.
[1] https://casaenriquelic.com/dinner-1
[2] https://casamononyc.com/menu/#dessert
It's... the sh*t!
The high-end places are not only about 'better' food per se. It's all about the ingredients, the preparation, the presentation, the uniqueness [of the dishes, menu, ingredients, etc] and perhaps as or more important than the food itself is the level of service. Combined, it's the full experience you're paying for, not just 'better' or 'different' food. Essentially, you are paying significantly more to sort of 'upgrade' everything about the entire dining experience. It is not only about the food (Though the food is indeed very important).
No, not everyone can afford to try a Michelin Star restaurant. A lot of Michelin restaurants suck. And you don't have to pay a ton for a good meal; some of the best food I've ever had has cost $10.
However, food is right up there with music as something that connects people. A taste or smell can unlock a memory you thought you lost forever, or create new ones you'll never forget. There's a reason meals are so prominent in movies and literature. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good relationship with food (in fact, for many, the connotations can be quite negative), and I'm so happy for this person that she loved it.
When done right, nice restaurants are an experience. From start to finish, from the food to the drink to the decor to the people, it's closer to going to a Broadway play or art museum than it is a normal meal.
For people who can afford it readily, the experience is almost lost. It can become a status symbol, where the Instagram story is more important than enjoying it. It was so charming to see this through the eyes of someone who had no pretentious goals going into it, and had a wonderful time.
Here for a related personal anecdote and a movie reference.
On a conference trip to Chicago I managed to snag a reservation for a Michelin-starred restaurant (Alinea.) The first appetizer was an unusual-looking canapé sprayed with a white foam, featuring salmon and dill as key flavors. It took me back to my 10-year-old self sitting at my grandparent's Thanksgiving table which included shrimp with grandma-grown dill. The meal tab was pricy, the recall of a grand moment was something akin to priceless.
The movie reference is 'Ratatouille,' where the antagonist restaurant critic has such a moment.
To take two examples from my own eating experience on either end of the spectrum:
- Alinea, in Chicago → the experience is full of surprises, artful experiences, etc. The desert is lowered from the ceiling and involves what is essentially violently making a Jackson Pollock on the table
- Forum, in Hong Kong → on the other hand, there is nothing special or creative about Forum, which executes Cantonese cuisine traditionally and perfects its execution of traditional dining in the 50 years since it's been open
Most of the time, the restaurants are somewhere in the middle, but closer to the Forum end than the Alinea end.
Probably the most innovative and interesting one I've tried is Gaggan, which has since closed but had 2 stars and a ranking as Asia's #1 restaurant, doing a 25-course experimental take on Indian cuisine in Bangkok.
Gaggan Anand opened another restaurant called "Gaggan Anand". Smaller, more experimental and without his old business partners. https://gaggananand.com/
If I'm not mistaken, Good Luck Dim Sum has a Michelin star. If you're already in San Francisco, or if you can get there, then basically everyone can afford it.
Here's the full list in SF: https://guide.michelin.com/us/en/california/san-francisco/re...
I've seen many many more people having an absolute blast at fancy restaurants, so that's great. For example, last time we were at Press ( https://g.page/pressnapavalley?share ), we had an amazing meal next to a group of seniors celebrating one of their birthdays and reminiscing about all their adventures together. They were curious about one of our dishes and chatted with us for a few minutes, and we helped them take a photo together.
Life and experiences like these are what you make of them.
Some people are just miserable people. Some people also just spend money because they have it. I've seen people order $3k bottles of wine and leave half on the table and leave. They didn't not enjoy it, they just didn't care.
True. Further sometimes people are just in miserable situation. Also having money helps them make statement like "meh, it taste like crap anyway". Middle class me would scared to say or imply any such thing at fancy places.
Not really.
I've been to a whole lot of them and seek them out. I've been mildly disappointed here and there, or underwhelmed. Never seen one that sucked though.
I can think of two that I was quite disappointed with (I won't name them, but both no longer have stars... meaning the system works!). I luckily didn't mind, personally, but if I sacrificed 6 months of takeout for it I would have said it "sucked".
In the United States, the Michelin guide awards stars in NYC, Chicago, DC, and California.
They've bought up all the locals and put them under this banner. Slow, buggy, low information-density.
This is how the BBC looked as early as I can vaguely remember it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/default.stm better in almost every way.
I have no idea of the thinking behind it but I hope the devs, testers and designers behind it hide that part of their experience on their CVs.
I mean, the shame they must feel.
But I suspect there is so little money in local news now (partly because of the internet and partly because of the collapse of newspaper-driven local commerce, small ads, all that), that they do not care; they are in a toxic relationship with the only advertising that pays, and to step outside that and construct a local news model that would be sustainable and not abusive to its readers is the stuff of romance novels and Hallmark movies.
With the Reach sites I am surprised by some of the design elements that could be improved even without touching the aggressively bad advertising design, though. The typical "where I live" selector could be so much better.
This is why the moreover.com "news from other websites" bit is on the BBC News site now (though it blows me away how poorly some independent websites populate that one opportunity to be seen, with weird autoscraped content snippets that are often comically weird)
We walked into this little Italian restaurant, ordered an expensive Merlot and a tomahawk steak to share. First the wine, "holy shit" was the exact words I used when I first tasted it, super smooth, to the point where you couldn't feel even the smallest bit of sting from the alcohol.
Then the steak, the tenderest steak I've ever had. You cut of pieces of fat and as soon as you put it in your mouth the thing just melts away.
In the end dinner set us back 250 euros, and much like this lady, I walked away going "that was worth every penny". Food like that isn't just about the experience, it's also the memory. That dinner I had is now almost 4 years ago but I still remember the wine and the slightly salted steak kisses fingers like an italian
I guess it means you'll have to go back! Next time go to Florence and order a Fiorentina Steak with a Montepulciano. That's going to be 50€ for two. And, as you said, the memory will last forever.
I also find that kind of luxury isolates and alienates you
I can mirror the sentiment from this article. Tasting menus are absolutely phenomenal, and worth the money, though of course I couldn't afford to have that every single day.
The idea of paying good money to a chef so they they can thoughtfully procure food instead of buying slabs of meat in bulk, and prepare it in such a way as to arouse the senses, is not really that wild of an idea (perhaps paying a multiple of a standard meal would be offensive to some, I get that.)
My only criticism is that while the food is frickin' amazing, you only get one bite of it, per dish. Maybe two. Maybe that's part of the appeal.
I suppose that gets you to savour it?
When I read in this article that the author was for sure they weren't using magic mushrooms or some other kind that would cause a more immediate effect, I was thinking “for suuuuure?” I’ll allow it
I think a better way to say it is that it helps you appreciate the large number of courses without getting stuffed or having your senses exhausted.
Imagine going to a concert where the band says they are going to play their entire catalog front to back. If you're about to listen to 50 songs, you probably don't want them to also play the extended versions of each one at full blast if you have any hopes of making it through the show.
I mean, there's a limit to how much you can eat before you start feeling bloated and over-full. More food per course = less courses.
Lots of Michelin starred restaurants in Europe offer tasting menus + a la carte menu (ie. menu where you can choose items) with larger portions. In North America though, most high-end restaurants do one or the other.
Love this! Her synopsis could have easily gone the other way at “tiny plates of food at big prices”.
The experiences and attention to detail are what I like most about Michelin starred places.
Especially how a place so fancy can have servers that treat you so personably, which is her experience as well. “Lick the plate! I’ll cover for you!”
I’ve been to many places with inferior levels of validation that were much more pretentious, like the Italian places all over America where nothing is in English but you have to pretend you’re cultured enough to just know what everything is - there’s more English on menus in actual Italy! Even in the middle of nowhere!
The last thing is how the servers know when to be present without hovering or interrupting too often or too infrequently. Some places must have secret passages just for the wait staff and servers.
Turns out when you really care about something and do it for a long time under the tutelage of experts, you can get literally 10 or 100 times better at, say, serving someone water without being noticed.
They are also, in my experience, just as excited as you are. These people love their work, or they wouldn't be there; they get so happy when people love the food they're serving, and they're always ready to gush with you about how good it is. Very fun interactions.
I don't think it's possible to do it unless you actually enjoy it.
Exactly. You can often tell the step up from good to great by whether the servers are intentionally making a show of their presence vs. when you don't notice them other than when you want to.
At one place which should have known better my date and I ended up playing a game of "try to touch the wine bottle before the sommelier would make it to the table" as they insisted on making an annoying show of serving that at first was disruptive rather than helpful, and so we turned to passive aggressive rebellion... But that was funny once - it made me reluctant to go there on dates again.
Conversely at some of the best places I've eaten the serving staff are like ninjas and you hardly even notice your napkin is dirty before it has magically been replaced.
(I've had memorable interactions with servers who knew when to be noticed, so it's not about never being heard or seen, but about understanding when it adds to the experience and when it would interrupt)
The best figure it out fast and adapt - obviously this all applies to more than just serving food of course.
They'll put on a show, but it'll be understated, and they'll know when to dial it back because they see you in conversation, and when it's ok to interrupt.
The over the top show is a trademark of second tier restaurants that often are still great, but feel a need to trade on gimmicks as a step up from places where the service is inattentive.
So you go from inattentive to overattentive to well calibrated.
IMO these are the worst restaurants; wanna-be "fine dining" which simply isn't..
It's true they don't like to be so crass as to talk about money, but other than the obvious (if you want another drink, it'll cost ya), things offered to you are often without charge. Little tastes of this, more of that. The prices on the menu are high, but it seems that once you've swallowed that, when you receive the bill, it's lower than you expect.
One notable exception is high end hotels, at least in the US, especially in the pandemic, where the extra cost mostly just seems to be an invitation to get nickeled and dimed on every little thing you do from parking to wifi. It's the 2 and 3 star hotels that throw freebies and conveniences at you.
I guess it's the tourist trap kind of place generally. They may be 80% of the way there in many ways, but the other 20% consists of so many glaring issues that it ruins the whole experience.
One thing to remember or value when you go to these places is that you're not largely paying for the food. You're paying for 4-5x the people per diner than any normal restaurant -- you're paying for their time to pore over the ingredients more carefully than you would yourself, their time to learn about and explain it to you, their time to come up with amusing and interesting ways to prepare it, their time to wait on you like a sultan and never fail to bore your palate.
Not saying that it's worth it for everyone or that it's even completely justified as they think it is (every artist thinks that any excessive amount they spend on some esoterica is "worth it"), but that's really where your $ are going. Maybe that's the way to think about it -- you're paying for art.
And being one of the few diners who the cost of paying for people's livelihoods is spread over (especially if those people have student loans to pay for) -- that is expensive.
It is truly an unforgettable experience from start to finish. It's obvious that so much thought and care goes into everything that you can't even really compare it to a regular "nice" restaurant. It's an entirely different class of dining, and this article conveyed it perfectly. Made me want to prioritize getting to an actual Michelin star restaurant.
https://everywhereist.com/2021/12/bros-restaurant-lecce-we-e...
> Very, very expensive theater.
Well yes, it's also theatre. It's a form of art.
The dishes were tiny? You chose the 27-course tasting menu. What did he expect, 27 large portions of lasagne? Most of the article seems to be just about how everything was only small mouthfuls, but this is perfectly normal. Perhaps the same restaurant has an a la carte menu, or a 6-course tasting. That would be different. Here [1] is a video of people eating there, and they are quite satisfied.
PS: of course you can eat rancid things. If you're not willing to try weird stuff you just choose another restaurant. Not a michelin-starred one that is particularly famous for quirky stuff, like Bros.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAvLiQZhg3Y
Let's start with a look at their post-script at the end of the article, since it's about portion-sizing:
>Note: the TripAdvisor reviews show a lot of elaborate courses, and these were all way, way more food than anything we ate. I cannot express to you how little we were fed, and I’m not a particularly big eater. Allergy and dietary restrictions were largely ignored.
>The servers will not explain to you what the hell is going on.
>When a member of our party stood up during the lengthy stretch between courses to go have a cigarette outside, and was scolded to sit down.
>When one member of our party was served nothing for three consecutive courses, because they couldn’t figure out how to accommodate her food allergies.
>When Rand was served food he was allergic to, repeatedly, because they didn’t care enough to accommodate his.
I've never seen a Michelin-level restaurant just flat-out not serve a guest a course (in this case multiple - three!) because of their dietary restrictions, nor have I seen a Michelin-level restaurant "forget" about said restriction.
>When a server reprimanded me for eating. These reconstituted orange slices (one per person) were a course. I asked if I could eat the real orange that had been served alongside it (we’d all gotten one, and I, at this point, was extremely hungry). “Yes,” the server said, annoyed. “But you aren’t really supposed to.” He let me have two segments and then whisked the fruit away.
So they served edible food and then took it away before people were finished eating?
>That’s the problem with a tasting menu. With so many courses, you just assume things are going to turn around. Every dish is a chance for redemption. Maybe this meal was like Nic Cage’s career – you have to wait a really long time for the good stuff, but there is good stuff.
Clearly the servers were not communicating the progress of the meal to the guests:
>“Would you like red or white?” the server asked.
>“What are we having for the main?” she inquired.
>His face blanched.
>“The… main, madame? Um… we’re about to move on to dessert.”
Or this description-less explanation of a dish from a server:
>“We’ve infused these droplets with meat molecules,” the server explained, and left.
>... and a dish called “frozen air” which literally melted before you could eat it...
>P.S. – The next day, one of the staff tried contacting the only single female member of our party via Instagram messages. “Hey, I served you last night!”
I mean, there's art [nods head], and then there's art [shakes head]. If you take the time to read the article, it's apparent that these guests have dined at tasting-menu establishments before, perhaps even Michelin-level spots. But to be fair to them, Lecce absolutely does seem like it's trying entirely too damned hard to be over the top in a way that is detrimental to itself.
I don't think you go there to feel "full".
What's your obesity range atm?
The best cup of black coffee I’ve ever had was at a three star restaurant. It was just a simple cup of coffee but it was just made completely perfectly. Great beans I’m sure, a good roast, brewed exactly the right way. You can of course get that outside of a Michelin starred restaurant easily, but the point is in a three star restaurant everything is perfect, even the cup of coffee you have after dinner. They didn’t teen me where the beans were from or who roasted it, it was pedestrian for them.
As someone who grew up with public school teachers for parents and corn fields surrounding my house, it was transcendental. The staff was just as lovely as the food, and it's easily the best gift I've ever gotten from an employer.
Kind of funny that such a now-fancy food is supposed to taste as if you ate it from under a nomad's butt.
My wife and I had a lovely time at each place.
Whether it's worth it depends entirely on how much money you have. If you are FAANG Engineer rich, you could probably eat there every day if you'd wanted to. In that case, yeah it's worth it. If you earn the median salary in the EU, then nah.